Doubts
by Artemisdesari
Summary: Tag to 10x07. Castiel makes a late night call. Dean reconnects with a friend he was not aware he was drifting away from


_Not my best piece, not by the longest of long shots but I had to write it and this is what came to me. What can I say? I've been out of the fandom for a long while and 10x07 inspired me a little bit. Who else loves Rowenna? I love her._

_**Disclaimer: Nope, I'm still holding out for Dean and Cas to fall into each others arms and make the beast with two backs. So you can safely assume that it's not mine and that I'm playing.**_

Doubts.

It is late, too late for his cell phone to be ringing the way that it is. Dean hurts, hurts more than he would like to admit to Sam, from the beating that Cole gave him and all he wants to do is sleep. Except that it might be a case, or something important and he looks at the display in bleary eyed confusion. Castiel. That name has not popped up on his screen in some time. In fact he has not really spared much of a thought for his friend over the last few weeks and his gut twists in guilt at that. Cas has done so much for them, prevented Dean from doing the unthinkable and all Dean has done is push the angel further and further away to prevent himself from getting hurt in that way that he always is. He has to wonder, now, if this is going to be the last time he speaks to Cas, if the angel is calling with his final farewell as his borrowed grace leaks away into nothingness and he dies once and for all.

"Cas," his voice rasps with sleep and drink and painkillers and he clears his throat as he swings to his feet, casts a glance at Sam who is still asleep and creeps to the door. "What's up, man?" He tries to keep it light, in truth expected the angel to call his brother rather than him. The two seem to have become closer over the last couple of years and it is warming but also scary. Once upon a time Castiel was _his_ friend, not Sam's, just his and it has been so rare that Dean has had something for himself in his life that he had almost been jealous when his friend and his brother started to become close.

"Dean, I..." Castiel trails off, seems unsure even though the hunter cannot see him and Dean waits quietly. "Did I wake you?" He asks and Dean abruptly remembers Castiel's time as a human, the time that the angel learnt why so many things he had done in the past were upsetting.

"Nah," he brushes it off, "was having trouble anyway." It is comforting to hear his friend's voice, to know that Castiel thinks of him.

"I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing anymore,"Castiel says abruptly. "The mission, the renegades. I took Jimmy Novak from his life and I'm not sure that I had the right to keep him from it."

"Alright," this is new, Dean thinks, Castiel has had doubts before but never about his _vessel_ of all things. "What's brought this on?"

"A..." he pauses, "a friend. She reached the same conclusion, let her vessel go and left so that she could go back to her life. It made me wonder what right I had to keep Jimmy from his family."

"It's been, what, six years?" Dean asks and Castiel makes an affirmative hum on the other end of the line. "Are Claire and Amelia even still looking?"

"I don't think so, I don't know," he sighs, heavy like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and maybe, Dean reflects, he does in his own way. "Their most recent attempt is about eighteen months old. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't welcome him back."

"Maybe," Dean hedges, aware that with the wrong word Cas might decide to make good on these doubts and take Jimmy home. "But, is he even still in there? I mean, you kinda got him blown up twice, disintegrated by leviathans, sent to purgatory. You've been human in that body. Is it even possible?" As much as the thought troubles him he wants Castiel to say no. He does not want to consider what the angel might do if the answer is a positive one.

"No," Castiel says softly. "He's been gone a long time, Dean. Maybe they need to know that, so they can move forward."

"How long as he been gone?"

"I don't know," Castiel admits. "Before our encounter with Lucifer. I was brought back but the vessel was empty. I didn't consider it before." There is so much sorrow in the angel's voice that Dean almost wonders how Cas is still functioning. He knows that he is not getting the whole story here, knows that whatever happened really must have thrown Castiel, but whatever it was has shaken the little confidence in his mission that the angel had and this cannot be a good thing.

"You can't go to them, Cas," he tells the angel. "What would you say? Stop looking? I'm wearing his face but he's long dead? Sometimes people don't want the truth, sometimes they want to be able to hope." Which is a similar idea to his words to Cole, except that Dean knows there was a grain of truth in them. As long as he has the Mark he can feel darkness right on the edge of his being. As long as he does not have the blade he can hold it at bay but who knows for how long?

"It's not right to put them through this," the angel insists. "They have a right to know."

"Look, Cas, I... I can't make you do anything, alright?" He asks, leaning against the wall and rubbing his hand over his face. "Just promise me you'll think before you go and see them. Promise me you'll take us with you?"

"You would come?" Hope, for the first time Dean hears it and he finds himself promising silently that this will be the last time he forces his friend to deal with so much alone. He does not, after all, have the monopoly on bad situations.

"Of course we would," he says softly, glancing back at Sam once more and seeing his brother stir. "Look, why don't you meet us at the bunker? We'll catch up." So many bad memories in that place but perhaps it would do them all good to face up to them.

"I'd like that," Castiel replies. "There is much you need to know." That sounds ominous but Dean chooses to ignore it in favour of agreeing to meet in two days. It is a meeting that is long overdue. Out the corner of his eye he could swear that he sees a small smile on Sam's face and he wonders just how long his little brother has been listening for.


End file.
